The study surveyed 7,000 people about their habit of watching cat videos and how doing so affects their mood. According to CBS News, participants reported experiencing “fewer negative emotions” after watching cat videos, including “anxiety, sadness and annoyance”. And this is true even if the participants were watching cat videos to avoid working or studying.

Jessica Gall Myrick, the author of the study and an assistant professor at Indiana University’s Media School, said, “Even if they are watching cat videos on YouTube to procrastinate or while they should be working, the emotional pay-off may actually help people take on tough tasks afterward”. In other words, watching cat videos could make you more productiveHow To Be More Productive When Working From HomeHow To Be More Productive When Working From HomeIs working from home (or to use the term – telecommuting) more productive than working from an office? The debate was re-ignited after Marissa Mayer's clarion call to all Yahoo employees. Just like all blah-blahs,...Read More.

The study also found that cat owners and shy people were more likely to watch cat videos online. Which really shouldn’t come as a great surprise to anyone. However, the fact that just 25 percent of the cat videos the participants watched were ones they had actively sought out shows just how easy it is to be distracted by this genre.

Myrick defended the study against any charges of it being a waste of time, saying, “Some people may think watching online cat videos isn’t a serious enough topic for academic research, but the fact is that it’s one of the most popular uses of the Internet today. If we want to better understand the effects the Internet may have on us as individuals and on society, then researchers can’t ignore Internet cats anymore”.

To find out the nutritional information on any item of fast food, simply ask Google, whether by typing the question or using voice search. A typical query may be, “How many calories in a Big Mac?” Which will provide all of the nutritional information, including the levels of saturated fats, cholesterol, and indeed calories.

Forrester continued, “With the move to encrypted search by default we will continue to pass along a referrer string so that marketers and webmasters will be able to identify traffic as coming from Bing. However, to further protect our users’ privacy, we will not include the used query terms”.

However, a mobile app might help, even if that is something that should have been in place from the start. Engadget has tested the new Ello app and seems rather impressed, but whether it’s enough to increase the userbase remains to be seen. The Ello app is available on iOS from today (June 18th), with Android and Windows users being forced to wait until later this year.

Cuddly Cat Jealous of PlayStation 4

And finally, now that we know watching cat videos can actually be good for you, there’s no excuse for not watching the clip embedded above. It shows a cat who really doesn’t like his owner playing video games, because when he does, he’s not giving kitty his undivided attention.

Your Views on Today’s Tech News

Do you regularly watch cat videos to relax? Would you ever Google fast food before eating it? Do you ever use Bing over Google? Will you be using Ello now that it has its own mobile app? What should that owner do to stop his cat harassing him?

Let us know your thoughts on the Tech News of the day by posting to the comments section below. Because a healthy discussion is always welcome.

You should change the Big Mac/Google image. It's deceiving in that it displays 257 calories, but a Big Mac's true caloric value is 563. For some reason, the quantity in your screen shot is only 100 grams rather than the full amount.